123 – The Sound of Green

This week on the WELSTech podcast green technology is the discussion topic and we hear from Office Depot representatives about available ShopWELS.net discounts.

The discussion:

An Eco-Friendly St. Pat’s Day – What better day to “go green” than St. Patrick’s Day.  Martin and Sallie talk green technology (with a bit on green rivers and green cake as well) and share ideas to make your life and your church and school environmentally friendly.

• The definition of green computing from Wikipedia
• Power management tips from Climate Savers Computing
• CFL Light Bulbs in Plain English from CommonCraft
• Paperless newsletter communication with MailChimp.com
• USBCELL AA Rechargeable Batteries
• Green Schools
• School Composting Tips
• Do the Rot Thing: A Teacher’s Guide to Compost Activities (PDF – 2.5 MB)
• EPA resources on Protecting the Environment at School and at Work

The interview:

(23:35) Save on Office Supplies – Joining Martin and Sallie today are Kathleen Wondolkowski and Julie Camp to talk about the many discounted services available to WELS groups and individuals through WELS partnership with Office Depot.

• ShopWELS.net

Picks of the week:

• (40:16) Shrink O’Matic– Batch image resizer
• LastPass – Cloud-based password keeper

Of interest:

• (47:31) WELS will be streaming the Martin Luther College Chapel of the Christ dedication service on Saturday, April 10 at 7 p.m.  Check out the agenda for the dedication weekend.
• Join Martin in Saginaw, MI for FinalWeb for Dummies. The three day face-to-face training will be held April 6-8 on the campus of Michigan Lutheran Seminary.  Check out details and register at bit.ly/fw4dummies.

Community feedback:

• (50:15) John Shoosmith from Redeemer in Yakima, WA shared his experience with YouTube’s new automatic closed captioning feature and the translation options it provides.  Check out a sample video.  Click the red CC icon in the player control bar to activated the closed caption feature and choose your desired language.
• Jason Schmidt from Gethsemane in Omaha, NE shared a link to 10 Google Forms for the Classroom.
• Ryan Rosenthal from Faith in Fond du Lac, WI tweeted links to Ten Free Web 2.0 Tools for the Classroom and 20 Online Tools to Make Learning Fun.
• Check out the recent discussion topics on the WELSTech Wiki including Organizing a Tech Committee and Fair Use Practices.
• Dave Heup uses KickYouTube.com to download YouTube videos like the American Pi song.  Don’t you just love Pi Day?  Google does!
• Perry Lund from Grace in Oskaloosa, IA shared a link to Squeeze, a Mac software pick for file compression.  And he asked how to include WELS videos on his church web site.  Check out the WELS video library at vimeo.com/wels and make use of the embed code on your site.
• Pastor Jon Guenther from Trinity in Marshfield, WI wrote to us looking for an e-newsletter solution.  We recommend MailChimp.com, and we even have a Bonus WELSTech Goodness episode dedicated to the topic.

Coming up on WELSTech:

(1:04:36) Episode 124 – Next week is book discussion week.  Read along as we talk through Chapter 5 of Shane Hipps’ The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture. (Release date 03/24/10)

The featured artist:

(1:05:01) We close the podcast with the music of Koine (www.koinemusic.com) – Crown Him With Many Crowns from their CD “Koine”

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